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    Wild Swans at Coole (Version 2)
    Wild Swans at Coole (Version 2)
    Wild Swans at Coole (Version 2)
    Audiobook1 hour

    Wild Swans at Coole (Version 2)

    Written by William Butler Yeats

    Narrated by Peter Tucker

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A collection of poems from the mid-career of this renowned Irish poet, the title poem referring to the estate of his friend and mentor, Lady Gregory. The poems display Yeats' use of symbols (cat, hare, moon, etc), his attachment to the supernatural and Irish folklore, and his recourse to alter egos (Aherne and Robartes). They also exemplify his distinctive style of expression. (Summary by Peter Tucker)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLibriVox
    Release dateAug 25, 2014
    Wild Swans at Coole (Version 2)
    Author

    William Butler Yeats

    W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet. Born in Sandymount, Yeats was raised between Sligo, England, and Dublin by John Butler Yeats, a prominent painter, and Susan Mary Pollexfen, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family. He began writing poetry around the age of seventeen, influenced by the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but soon turned to Irish folklore and the mystical writings of William Blake for inspiration. As a young man he joined and founded several occult societies, including the Dublin Hermetic Order and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, participating in séances and rituals as well as acting as a recruiter. While these interests continued throughout Yeats’ life, the poet dedicated much of his middle years to the struggle for Irish independence. In 1904, alongside John Millington Synge, Florence Farr, the Fay brothers, and Annie Horniman, Yeats founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which opened with his play Cathleen ni Houlihan and Lady Gregory’s Spreading the News and remains Ireland’s premier venue for the dramatic arts to this day. Although he was an Irish Nationalist, and despite his work toward establishing a distinctly Irish movement in the arts, Yeats—as is evident in his poem “Easter, 1916”—struggled to identify his idealism with the sectarian violence that emerged with the Easter Rising in 1916. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, however, Yeats was appointed to the role of Senator and served two terms in the position. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and continued to write and publish poetry, philosophical and occult writings, and plays until his death in 1939.

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